Ok, so it's been awhile since I posted anything on here. Sorry. I blame the stress of moving and I'm sticking to that story like glue.

So, here I am in Vancouver now. I must say, it's pretty damned cool. Victoria, you will have to work hard to keep my interest... lol... actually I don't know. We'll have to wait a bit and see because at the moment Vancouver has all that glitz and glamour that comes with anything new and exciting.

Lets see... what have I done recently? Most importantly I have spent lots of time (although not enough - it's never enough) with my friends located on this side of the pond. I forget how much I miss everyone when I'm not around. Thursday I went to the Art Gallery with Lee and had a tasty lunch and dinner with him and Jenya. Friday I hung out with my cool little brother (who both has a piece published in this edition of Monday - or maybe the last edition now - and will shortly be having another piece published in Extra West!) Saturday I went shopping with Jenya and Pamela and in the evening went to Pamela's for a birthday potluck. Oh, Victoria, you so LOSE to Vancouver when it comes to potlucks. People made actual food. It all worked together as a whole. Vancouver 1 Victoria 0. For the moment. Sunday I went to the folks' place. Monday I started class (very fun. I'll write more about that later) and that evening I went to a rock sing-along at the Railway club. Imagine this... live band... song books... and the entire bar singing along to such classics as Tainted Love and Psycho Killer. Ahhh.....

Vancouver 2... Victoria, you'd better get on it!

an Update (quickly because I have uber many papers to write)

Ok, so scratch the thought that I'm going to Alberta for my field school.

My archaeology prof emailed the class last Friday saying that SFU has a field school (which they don't usually open to non-SFU students) that just had two people drop out of. All of a sudden they were desperately looking for people to fill the spots. I checked out their website and the course looked amazing. Three months, one in the classroom at SFU, two in the field, on the Harrison river. Wow. U of A was only six weeks.

I emailed the prof to get info on how to apply and through an exchange of emails over the weekend, in addition to a phone call on Sunday, she accepted me to the program!

I will therefore be staying in Vancouver for a month this summer, starting the first week of May! I'll be staying with Jenya so all of you Vancouver kids better want to hang out lots!

Anyway, I can't write more because I have to keep working on my PowerPoint slides for a presentation on Wednesday. Wish me luck...

such an outpouring of love

and opinions about where I should go to field school. Thank you all. Here's an update for you all: I have decided on Bodo because I think I'll get much more out of staying in a field camp than I would from an urban school which probably has set hours of instruction and class participants that have to run off to do things in the evening. I send my "application" off to the U of A tomorrow (I have to pay them $100 to be "accepted" as an "Open Studies Student" and get a student ID number so that I can be registered in the course). So that's it. The school runs from the end of May to the first week of July (I'll miss my convocation, which is too bad and Harmony's fashion show too, which really sucks) but I am thrilled to be going.

Now I just have to tell my work...

So finally I'll try to write something on my blog for everyone. Did you miss me? Did you notice that it had been awhile?

Lately I just haven't been too sure of what I wanted/could write in this space. Thoughts of graduation have been taking me on a roller coaster of emotions as of late. One day I'll be excited about the prospect of getting out of school and looking for a job.. a beginning of a career. Finally having somewhere to work that is challenging and exciting for me. Making a bit more money and feeling a bit more settled somewhere. The next day I'll be thinking that there's no prospects for me when I graduate, that anthropology was a stupid subject to have studied because there are no jobs related to it and that I'll be stuck being someone's secretary for the rest of my life, that the greatest success I'll be able to hope for will be that I've helped someone else succeed.

Which perspective is closer to the truth? I have no idea. Today I feel good.. tomorrow? Who knows.

I have been accepted into the University of Alberta's archaeological field school this summer though. It's a six week course where I'll be camping in Bodo, AB (a "hamlet" with the huge population of... wait for it... approximately 30. Oh, and the nearest town, Provost, boasts the astounding population of just over 2000!) Hmmm.. this sounds like I'm not excited about this, which isn't true. I am. Very very excited. This will train me in the practical aspects of archaeology, giving me valuable field experience. Field experience which is required if I want to try to get a job as a junior archaeologist with an archaeological consulting firm. Which I just might.

Here's the problem though. UBC also has a field school this summer, in Point Grey. That means I'd get to be in Vancouver with everyone, and work closely with the Musqueam First Nation (because that is part of their project, while the U of A doesn't indicate if there is much First Nations involvement). Problem is, the application forms don't need to be in until March 31 and I have no idea if I will get in to that one. There are only 15 people admitted to the UBC school (same as U of A) so I don't want to say no to U of A without knowing from UBC. Also, I might get a more thorough experience in Bodo because we have to stay at the site for the entire 6 weeks, camping close to the dig, staying with the students and professors all the time. Whereas at UBC I'd go "home" in the evenings, to hang out with my friends and live it up in Vancouver. What to do?

Either way, I am thrilled to have this opportunity, proud of myself for having made the cut. And very very excited to be able to dig in the ground and uncover the remains of past people's lives.

If anyone is curious about the Bodo school and the site, check out their website... there isn't a huge amount of info there, but it does give some background on the site and what I might get to find... Bodo Field School Website

love is fleeting, stone tools are forever (or what I learned during reading break)

1. I have a new found respect for cobble choppers. A stone tool which looks totally unimpressive but is, in fact, much more difficult to manufacture. It requires you hold two large rocks in your hand and smash one into the end of the other with great force, while avoiding totally crushing your fingers between the two. Needless to say I was too hesitant to give enough of a blow, and my toolkit is therefore without a cobble chopper.















2. Obsidian is amazing, and ridiculously sharp. Well, I knew that already, but I thought I'd emphasize it again. The leather gloves that I got for my course are covered in cuts (but at least that wasn't my hand). Surgeons can use obsidian blades in surgery, if the patient supplies their own scalpels, because the edge of an obsidian blade is 10 to 20 times sharper than surgical steel, and cuts at the molecular leve;. Wow.









3. Making stone tools is very very fun, and now I want more raw materials to play with. Which is why Harmony and Kristy and I are going to Oregon in April. Yay - obsidian sourcing!

give me a minute and i'll be humming

It's 10:45 in the morning, I officially had 4 hours of sleep last night, I'm already on my second soup-bowl-sized cup of coffee, and I can feel the shakes coming on as we speak. It always tripps me out how fast drugs affect me: I'm a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, give me something like an antihistamine and I'm out cold in about half an hour, and give me more than one cup of coffee in a day and I start vibrating, can't concentrate and get kind of sketched out.

... oh and I get rather distracted. You can't tell but I just spent the last 15 mintues checking out CBC Radio 3 instead of writing this post. It's probably a really good thing that today seems to be a very slow day at work. I have officially had three people come into the office and no phone calls at all.

Anyway, last night was a very enjoyable evening spent with Harmony, Starr, Ryan, Jake and a bunch of randoms at Steamers for the Seven Year Old Poets' CD release party where Ryan's band Mujeres was one of the opening acts. Very good show. Only problem is, get me around musicians and I remember how much I like them. Damn. They're all so hot. Can I have one? Pretty please?

Also, I really want to be in a band. Very very badly. So I guess I'd better actually start practising. Anyone got some keys they want to lend/give me? Actually I might pick up the bass again. Slowly. In between papers...

Someday I'll get there.

you can tell me that your dog ran away...

There's something that I love about Canadian comedy. Something that I relate to. Maybe because its not set in overwhelmingly large cities like NY. Or because the characters aren't uber good looking. They're just normally good looking, rather like all my friends. (Yep - I think you're all pretty damn fine) And finally, maybe it's because all the characters are rather awkward. Well I supposed most comedy characters are awkward, but the Canadian ones just seem more so.

Hmm.. is this a Canadian trend? Does this mean that we're all awkward people? Soon we'll be known not as the nation that says "sorry" for everything and is excessively polite, but as the nation that you don't really want to take to that rockin' party with those suave nations from South America because Canada will just sit in the corner and blush when someone talks to us.

And speaking of trends, what about the focus on global warming? What's with that? Don't get me wrong, it's a super important subject to talk about, and one that needs everyone to take action on RIGHT NOW. But honestly, call me jaded, but I just don't think that Joe Public gives a fuck. They must not, what with the amount of things people throw away, the huge cars that people drive and their inability to properly sort recycling. And I think you could train chimps to sort recycling. So either it's been a really slow month for news, or we're on the brink of a major catastrophe caused by our blatant disregard of this problem.

... and this is it...

The last semester of the last year of my degree. Four short months until I have letters after my name. Granted, they're only going to be B.A., no M.A or PhD but still. Letters none the less. And who knows, maybe the others will come later. Or at least the M.A.

Anyway, this feels all the more real because I paid my tuition for the last time today. For the moment I have no large expenses that I need to save up for. Weird. Although, honestly, my computer sucks (and is old) so the plan is to start putting away money to replace it. Perhaps with an iBook. That is if i get over the fact that my brand new, shiny iPod arrived DOA and I have to send it back to Apple. Sigh. Even now the screen keeps flickering madly and it emits strange crunching electronic sounds from its internal speaker. Perhaps it's possessed. Like Natalie pointed out, this is Victoria. lol...

for my next song i'd like to take it back to my roots, show some respect to the people who made me who i am. kick it old skool

The gauntlet is being thrown down. You are all being called out. Now's the time to show your freestylin' skillz. 'Cept it won't be freestylin' on the mic but on the camera. That's right, this is going to be a photography contest.

Here how it all goes down.


Ryan and I found four point and shoot camera's from kid's cereal boxes at Value Village today and came up with the (genius) idea to hold photography contests with them. Being as they are pretty much bare bones cameras (no focus, no flash, one pre-set aperture) we really think that we could have some fun with them, and try to get totally creative... here's the structure we were thinking about having.

1. Ryan and I each get to choose someone else to be in the competition. At the moment I am thinking Matt for the first time, being as he has mentioned that he wants to get into photography again. But let me know if you are interested because he may not want to be involved at the moment, plus we'll need different people for the next time...

2. We're aiming for doing one "contest" a month.

3. Each month there will be a set film type (ie slide film cross-processed to prints, slide film into slides, black and white...) and possible an ASA guideline as well. There may also, at some point, be a theme as well.

4. Each photographer will be given a two week period in which to get their film, shoot it, get it printed and submit it to the judges (all prints)

5. The judges will then make their decisions on who is the winner for the contest (based on a set of criteria that have yet to be hammered out) and five of the best photos from each photographer will be displayed on a flickr site and perhaps at somebody's house or any space that we can find to do it.

So, thoughts, comments, criticisms, props? Let me know if you're interested... if this sounds like fun...

it's the spaces between us that keep us sane

I was thinking about space, and distance and relationships today. About how some of the most exciting moments are found before the action, in the spaces between yourself and the other person, between yourself and discovery, between yourself and the world. It's locking eyes across the room. The moment just before lips meet. Those few minutes right before the climax of the novel. The presents sitting for days, wrapped, beneath the tree. It's Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It's tension.

Why am I thinking about this now? At a moment when then only tension of this sort I have had in awhile was the presents under the tree? And watching The Big Sleep? For lack of something better to do, my over active imagination has started creating tension about having tension. Distract me, please?